I actually saw on channel 9 last night...a render of the structure in the skyline...a profile shot from what would be about 5 or 6 miles to the east of the skyline. From how it looks...and if its accurate...it seems to have a roof or parapet height about even with the Aon tower, and the spire actually goes higher, maybe even 50 feet. Now take into account ground elevation and things of that nature, and it may well be, if its built, the tallest in the city. US Bank will have more floors and a higher occupied level. Im going to try and find these renders for you...somewhere...LOL

Hey, here is a news clip from Channel 2 that talks about it...gives more prespective on the structure.
Enjoy! It says it will be shorter than the US Bank and Aon, but it looks like thats only from a floor number measure.
Thoughts?

I don't know about you Just-In-Cali, but my thoughts are with some of the other forumers, in that it should've been on the nearby parking lot. According to what i've read in the Times the last few days, the previous structure on the plot of land has outlived it's usefullness as a hotel. Still, they could've turned it into condos.

yup. i noticed that too. the current hotel driveway/lobby is poor urban design as a dark recess stretching along its length of 7th. this opens up the entire intersection to a great degree and, along with a badly need fix to 7th and fig can better bridge downtown to central city west. that stretch of figueroa stretching from 8th on northwards has always suffered from brutal highway architecture. it can use this. the wall of parking facing 8th needs to be redone also. what were the architects thinking? i wish this had happened to the marriot. there is so much crap along that stretch of fig. 7th and metro's effect on streetlife is pretty much nonexistent of anywwhere west of the 110. that needs to change if we want a relevant downtown.

The Metro Station at 7th & Flower is a block away from this proposed building. I believe waht is on the corner is a ground level retail opportunity... yet to be determined. Could be a flower shop, or a coffee shop, or something else simple.

I don't know about you Just-In-Cali, but my thoughts are with some of the other forumers, in that it should've been on the nearby parking lot. According to what i've read in the Times the last few days, the previous structure on the plot of land has outlived it's usefullness as a hotel. Still, they could've turned it into condos.

Except... Korean Air already owns the property and has for awhile. They are leveraging their existing investment to turn it into something else to generate a greater return. And, I think we can assume they've already conducted an analysis examing the investment... and it obviously panned out otherwise they would not have pursued to this point in time.

No kidding. I always love the 'it should have been built over on that other lot' rambling we commonly get here. Real estate transactions of this magnitude don't work that way. If this project penciled out on the other parking lot property in a better way, that's what would have been done.

But since we are grounded in reality here...nice to see that there are a few players still looking at the long term...this has the potential to dramtically improve that intersection.

__________________Even if you are 1 in a million, there are still 7,000 people just like you...

The Metro Station at 7th & Flower is a block away from this proposed building. I believe waht is on the corner is a ground level retail opportunity... yet to be determined. Could be a flower shop, or a coffee shop, or something else simple.

yeah, i'm aware that its a block away. i was just suggesting the potential draw for more development to serve that station in this part of downtown.

All this talk about "it should have been over there" is really quite beside the point. They put it where it was most feasable. bmfarley and plinko hit it on the head. Why would they drop another several million on a new lot and all the costs that it would incur.
I would have loved to have seen the whole skyline moved to where Santa Monica is and have a ocean front downtown...but if wishes were horses...
First lets see if the thing even gets outa the gate before we start bitching...yet again...on trivial topics.

The Metro Station at 7th & Flower is a block away from this proposed building. I believe waht is on the corner is a ground level retail opportunity... yet to be determined. Could be a flower shop, or a coffee shop, or something else simple.

Yeah, but the OP was referring to the 7th/metro entrance at 7th/Fig, not 7th/Flower. The 7th/Fig entrance is directly across the street from this project. I think that the fact that the Metro station is right there is a factor in their decision to build it there. I know that in large part it's because they already own the hotel/land, but they could easily sell the hotel and buy a parking lot somewhere a few blocks away that would initially seem to make more sense financially, but I bet that they see that spot as the future center of downtown LA. In 10 years that location will be LA's version of Times Square from a transit perspective. The Red, Purple, Blue, Expo, and Gold lines will all use that station.

I actually like this project. A lot. Imagine looking west down 7th street from Broadway in 2015. I like its proximity to the 7th/metro hub and I hope the design seamlessly incorporates itself into the station (A direct tie to an underground pedestrian tunnel and shopping/restaurants? Yes, please). It would be a beautiful urban composition, and the change is much welcomed by me.

High-rises dwarf options for downtown L.A.
Mega-projects have their place, but two new Figueroa Corridor proposals spotlight the city's all-or-nothing planning mind-set.

IN THE PIPELINE: Daniel Libeskind’s tower design.

By CHRISTOPHER HAWTHORNE, Architecture Critic
April 11, 2009

A pair of high-rise projects planned for the Figueroa Corridor downtown jumped into the headlines this week, as if out of nowhere. The first, set to replace the Wilshire Grand hotel and office complex at Figueroa Street and Wilshire Boulevard, will be designed by AC Martin Partners, the big local firm. It has an estimated budget of more than $1 billion. The other, proposed for a site near the southern edge of South Park, across from the Los Angeles Convention Center, is by Daniel Libeskind, best known for his Jewish Museum in Berlin and his much-altered master plan for the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan.

Both projects are backed by Korean groups. Korean Air, and the larger Hanjin Group of which it is a part, owns the Wilshire Grand property, where it wants to build a mixed-use complex crowned by two towers, the taller one 60 stories high. CA Human Technologies, a joint venture of two Korean firms, is behind the 43-story Libeskind tower, which would include 273 residential units stacked atop an eight-level podium containing parking, restaurants and a spa. If completed, it would be Libeskind's first Los Angeles building.

The sudden appearance of these designs, even in provisional form, in the middle of a deep recession prompts a couple of questions. Why now? And why -- when the last thing downtown needs, from an urban-planning point of view, is another stand-alone super-block high-rise, standing aloof from the street and its neighbors -- might we be getting two more?

The first question is relatively easy to answer. The entitlement process in Los Angeles is lengthy, bordering on Byzantine. Developers who want to be first out of the gate when the economy improves would be wise to begin that process now, particularly if it gives them the chance to take advantage of low construction and materials costs that will likely prevail for another couple of years.

A more cynical version of the same answer might go this way: Developers who feel prepared to move forward on the approval front, even if their financing remains iffy, can take advantage of a climate in which the city is desperate to support any signs of new real-estate activity downtown.

The second question is trickier. But it is also crucial, since it goes to the heart of how planning happens in downtown Los Angeles -- and why, despite so much new energy and investment in recent years, the area retains at ground level an extreme split personality, with massive towers mixed in with huge, empty parcels.

The Figueroa Corridor, which city planners have long envisioned as a key connector downtown -- linking the USC campus, on its southern end, with Dodger Stadium to the north -- is a key case study in how that split personality is developed and exacerbated. It is a natural place for high-rise development, given its existing skyscrapers and links to mass transit. It will soon be getting at least two new residential towers: the first phase of the Concerto, a 30-story high-rise designed by DeStefano + Partners, and a 54-story hotel and condo building at L.A. Live, by Gensler.

But certain pockets of it remain filled by the same surface parking lots that dot much of downtown. Particularly south of L.A. Live, the area suffers from an extreme version of the all-or-nothing development approach that city leaders and most developers have long favored. There is almost no middle ground to be found between high-rise towers that take up full blocks at street level and empty swaths of land reserved for cars.

This approach prevents the emergence of the smaller-scale projects that can bring fresh vitality to a block -- and that may move forward even in a downturn, since they require drastically less financing. Such modest projects are also more likely to go to younger and more innovative architects.

The Libeskind tower is the latest example of how downtown moves from one extreme to another. In land-use terms, it is a process that takes us immediately from zero to 60, from emptiness to high-rise density. The site where the tower is set to rise, covering 57,000 square feet, is actually two separate pieces of land that are, in turn, made up of a total of seven parcels. Most of downtown, of course, was originally sliced up the same way, which is why its older sections retain a vital diversity of building forms, architectural styles and uses.

But the presence of a surface parking lot changes that dynamic -- not only for the obvious reason that it trades vitality for emptiness. A parking lot also smooths the way for high-rise developments like the Libeskind tower. It tends to pave over the visual -- and sometimes the legal -- divisions between one small parcel and the next, making it almost a foregone conclusion that the property will remain empty until a mega-project comes along to fill it on a massive scale.

Indeed, the city's planning department has rubber-stamped CA Human Technologies' effort to consolidate the various properties into a single massive development, even though that effort flies in the face of recommendations in new guidelines developed by the same department's Urban Design Studio. Following the department's recommendation, the Planning Commission voted 6-0 Thursday to approve zoning and other variances for the property.

Architecturally, of course, there are lots of ways to make mega-projects successful along the street, including opening them up fully to the sidewalk and designing them to contain a diversity of retail outlets at ground level. Libeskind's scheme, which is not among his finest, tries hard to do this, although the effort is undermined by the slashing forms that cross its podium section. These gashes are his formal trademark, but in this case they bring the massive scale of the tower down to the sidewalk level instead of helping to break it up.

The AC Martin design for Korean Air is even less developed architecturally. It is a sleek marker for a development whose viability is far from certain.

The enemy in this is certainly not the high-rise form itself, which can add immeasurably to the vitality of any city and has long been a vehicle for architectural innovation. It is a process that all but rules out other kinds of development in certain pockets of downtown.

__________________NEW YORK. World's capital.

“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.